High Art?

WARNING: The last five mins of this video is an advert for a VPN platform. I skipped them. As I usually do. Apologies if you watch it by mistake!

WARNING 2: Read on – I’m not just linking the video with no consideration or critique!

Are games an art-form with the same credibility as Novels or Movies?

So, I saw this video on Youtube – I’m subscribed to the Closer Look Youtube Channel and they have some very interesting videos on there. What the central question of this video is, is can video-games be art? The Author of the Game of Thrones series, George R. R. Martin, says it isn’t yet – but it will be. The video argues the point that it already is.

This made me think – not in any straight lines with any clear, reasoned arguments to refute or support the idea, but on a personal level. As a child of the 80s and 90s, I have played games all my life. I used to play with a ZX81 that was my father’s, I wrote my own games, learned to code in BASIC before I knew all my times tables. It is fairly safe to say that computers and computer games have been a part of my life for most of my life.

But are they art?

A quick internet search drew this amazing quote which I have shamelessly stolen (and attributed).

So, what is art and what can it do? Art can be fine craft, music, a painting, a sculpture, a building, a performance, a poem, a novel, and many other creations. Art pushes limits. Art broadens minds. Art stimulates conversations. Art can be crafty and art can be high-minded. Art can be all of these things depending on who is considering it. That is why art seems to endure. It is constantly changing, morphing and developing based on current taste, trends, political environments and emotional states of the community and artists who create it.

Because of the amount of art there is out there in the world, there is some that each of us might find uninspiring or even confusing, while there will be some that we find inspirational and resonates with us. At the same time that art is complex, diverse, global, confusing, it is also compelling, interesting, stimulating and beautiful. And this is what makes art, Art.

Andi Bedsworth

Owner of Art To Go, which brings free art opportunities to children in the community.

By this definition, anything can be art. Which maybe explains why sawing a shark in half or painting in ones own poop seems to have critics fawning or ready to murder in High Art circles. Henry, from the Closer Look, is right: Games can be art. But that doesn’t mean all games are.

Which opens an interesting doorway for someone like me. If games have as much credibility as novels and films do in the realm of fantasy stories, does that mean that Skyrim would be something I could mine for interesting ideas? Is Neverwinter Nights II a valuable experience for me as I examine high fantasy settings? Would it hurt or help to play Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines if I was thinking of writing a horror story?

The answer, I think, has always been yes. Many games, I think, fall in the category of genre fiction – they aren’t high concept stories, but they are very fun to play and very interesting. They are also an invaluable source to mine for ideas to adapt, change, and use as inspiration.

Thank you, Henry from the Closer Look – A great video.